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Computer Help Please

My computer about twice a day tells me "Virtual Memory Minimum too Low". What does that mean? And how can I fix it? You also need to know my computer knowledge is limited to turning it on, signing on the internet, downloading music and typing.

My entire life can be described in one sentence: It didn't go as planned and that's okay.

Re: Computer Help Please

You can find your virtual memory settings in Control Panel/System/Advanced/Performance Settings/Advanced. You can view the size of the disk space that is used for virtual memory.

The first thing I would do is find out how much hard drive space you actually have available. Go to your C drive, right click and check properties. Depending on the size of your hard drive, which if your PC is new like you say, it should be at least 40 gig. Do you download a lot of music or video files?

Re: Computer Help Please

GR,

Try checking out your Task Manager to see if something's lurking in memory. When the Task Manager comes up (you can get that by right-clicking the taskbar and selecting Task Manager), everything that's active (for example Excel or Internet Explorer) should be under the "Applications" window. If that looks ok, click on "Processes" window. Left-click on the CPU column twice (the first click sorts it ascending so everything taking no memeory is at the top, the second click sorts it descending so that those processes taking memory show up at the top). System Idle Process should take up about 99% of your CPU unless you are actively running an application. Anything other than the Systems Idle Process should be suspect. I wouldn't go deleting anything that you're unsure of (Dell loves to do auto-upgrades).

Re: Computer Help Please

Originally Posted by Archer1979

GR,

Try checking out your Task Manager to see if something's lurking in memory. When the Task Manager comes up (you can get that by right-clicking the taskbar and selecting Task Manager), everything that's active (for example Excel or Internet Explorer) should be under the "Applications" window. If that looks ok, click on "Processes" window. Left-click on the CPU column twice (the first click sorts it ascending so everything taking no memeory is at the top, the second click sorts it descending so that those processes taking memory show up at the top). System Idle Process should take up about 99% of your CPU unless you are actively running an application. Anything other than the Systems Idle Process should be suspect. I wouldn't go deleting anything that you're unsure of (Dell loves to do auto-upgrades).

If this all looks ok, you most likely have some spyware or a virus.

Doing this should do the trick. Most likely there is a process running behind the scenes that is taking up too much RAM.

End any processes that are taking up a lot of RAM. Just don't end any that are under the "SYSTEM" user name. Also, don't end "explorer.exe."

Re: Computer Help Please

Guys....Thank you, thank you, thank you. Apparently my dear sweet daughter had download tons of music (which I just deleted), I increased the size of the disk space that is used for virtual memory, ended some processes and found 88 instances of tracking cookies. I feel so smart now! Thanks again for all the help!

(The only thing I couldn't figure out was how to get to my "c" drive)...I know that just made me stupid again.

My entire life can be described in one sentence: It didn't go as planned and that's okay.

Re: Computer Help Please

C drive is typically your hard disk. Start > My Computer > C:

Processes will start right back up when you reboot your system. I recommend checking what's in your system tray (lower right corner) and if you don't need them, disabling them in the options. If you really want to feel tricky, you can go to Start > Run and type msconfig. Go to the last tab and check off anything you don't need. But that's kind of complex.

Lastly, make sure you've got all the windows updates (find windows update in the start menu). This is huge for security and performance.